


Something Worth Saving

by Aja



Category: Keeping the Faith
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M, Yuletide, Yuletide 2006
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-25
Updated: 2006-12-25
Packaged: 2017-12-29 08:05:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1002985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aja/pseuds/Aja
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for: mazily in the Yuletide 2006 Challenge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something Worth Saving

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mazily](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mazily/gifts).



> it's a privilege to write for an author who wrote one of my favorite fics for Yuletide 2005. Also, I had forgotten how much I love this film  thank you for requesting this, and reminding me.

_Do you want a fight?_  
If there's something worth saving  
A change would do me right.  
\- "Heart of Mine"

Jake likes to joke that he experienced boyhood in the 80's and grew up during the Bush Administration.

Every New Yorker will tell you things changed irrevocably after 9/11, but that assumes that things aren't always in a state of evolution. The real tragedy of New York after the attacks is that before, even with all its hubris, it was a city full of predominant belief in itself, and in its citizens. Being in the business of reminding people of their faith, he and Brian are able to see very clearly just how rapidly the faith of their congregations - the faith of all New York - has waned since that day.

It's not that it was unexpected; Jake has battled a daily minefield of anger (rage), bitterness (who can we bomb for this and how many times), resentment (Dear Lord, fuck You, too) - pretty much the five stages of grief plus at least ten more stages of `How the hell do you stand up on the Sabbath and tell people to believe in a loving god after this one?' For this he and Brian have been mutual supports. It's one thing to know in theory that in times of crisis you have to cling hardest to the things that are hardest to see - faith in God, faith in other people, a basic belief in the best parts of humanity. It's another thing to put it into practice. The two of them, along with their congregations, have proceeded by tripping and stumbling toward a semblance of the faith they had before other. And even harder than restoring people's faith in God is restoring people's faith in each other. Peace on earth, good will to men - it's never been an easy sell, but these days it all but gets you branded a hippie socialist ("Like Jesus!" Brian exults). Focusing on commonalities between religions and communities used to be a goal; but the wave of fear that sweeps across the country hits hardest in Lower Manhattan. Jake isn't sure if people are focusing on their distrust on other people to hide their distrust of themselves or what, but he knows is that since the attacks his job has gotten a lot tougher.

It starts out subtle - everywhere in the days after the attacks all anyone can see is the tragedy written in each other's faces; the more permanent scars take longer to show. The committee backs away, gradually but firmly, from interfaith worship on Sundays - the retirement center is one thing, but outsiders are, well, best when remaining outside. Brian's elder bishop retires and in his place is chosen a priest from New Hampshire whose first major objective is to cut down on allegations of sexual molestation among his diocese (in this case before they happen). A few members of Jake's congregation are sent to Iraq; one returns home with a year's worth of rehab in a veteran's hospital in place of the arm he is missing. Brian gets a stern talking to from the higher-ups for volunteering to start a book club in his parish - apparently, he fumes to Jake later, the bishops think he is pushing his congregation too hard in the direction of "evaluative critique over faith-based belief."

And so it goes. They survive - if only because senior citizens love karaoke. The one part both Jews and Catholics seem to agree on is the part that involves dancing. They're all for the dancing.

Fall 2004, the two of them await the results of the mid-term elections at the rectory together, watching the nation decide four more years of idealized intolerance and war is exactly what it wants, in complete silence. Since it's only a Tuesday and they have nowhere to be, the two of them start in drinking early and wind up passed out on the couch. Jake wakes up with Brian's feet resting on his stomach and his stomach tied in knots, half from the hangover, half from sheer despair. It's the first time he's seen Brian drink since The Anna Situation, which tells Jake all he needs to know about the stress he's been under.

Historically Jake has always been amazed at Brian's ability to show nothing but optimism in the wisdom of the Catholic Church. He likes to say that Christ died to take away people's sins, not their intelligence - but with some of the stuff coming out of the Vatican these days it's hard not to wonder if Brian really expects this maxim to apply to his higher-ups. Jake loves his faith for inviting him to argue with it, to question it ceaselessly until it wears him out. But when he's in the worn out stage, he often thinks it would be nice to be able to believe in your church purely because you want to. And hey, it's not like believing in something just because it makes you feel good isn't the hottest thing on the reality market these days.

He lies there with Brian's sock feet poking his ribs, thinking about life and 2001, and how three years ago he and Anna and Brian were going to summon the bright new century together purely by the power of their love for each other. They were going to remake the world. They had all had more optimism back then. Now it seems as if the whole world has gotten more and more jaded, and the fairy dust has faded from their backs and taken their wings with it - as if now the universe is hunched over a little, bracing itself for the next hit.

When Brian opens his eyes his hair is mussed and his eyes are watery, and when he tries to talk he croaks from alcohol and lack of sleep. Jake tells him he looks like shit, and Brian tells him he looks like something the cat regurgitated. Then they joke that clearly if the politicians fail the nation, it can always turn to its upstanding religious leaders. Brian starts a spontaneous couch-pillow fight and wins ruthlessly, then makes coffee (Jake doesn't believe in salvation, but Brian's coffee after a hangover is pretty damn close to the definition of the word).

And suddenly things seem bearable again; not easy, but bearable. It's Wednesday - the metaphorical hump day in the decade known as the Zeroes. He's still got Brian, and Anna, and God (even if possibly his prioritization of the three of them is a little skewed) - and Thursday is Jake's favorite day of the week.

After that it's like the city, their congregations, and the three of them snap into gear. As if the last three years have been spent in a sluggish nightmare from which they have emerged to remember that they are, after all, New Yorkers. Brian starts his book discussion group with Toni Morrison and a look at Catholicism and its stance on slavery throughout the centuries. It quickly becomes so popular that a second group has to be formed just to hold the overflow. Jake begins to invite guest speakers on Wednesday nights for informal Q&A's. His first guest is a religious studies prof he had at CUNY, an Islamic disciple of Edward Said who packs the audience and stays an hour over schedule answering people's questions about the peace crisis. Somehow, after that first night, Jake isn't really sure how, the themed talks turn into an ongoing weekly discussion about the Middle East, and begins to draw people from all over the city. The maelstrom this causes on the committee of rabbis is minor, which is how Jake knows that the city is tired - tired of being at war with others, tired of being at war with itself. People are ready to listen because they're worn out from screaming.

He and Brian develop a ritual of meeting up at the rectory for the Daily Show and the Colbert Report. Kind of a joint Jewish-Catholic double feature, four nights a week. They're both so busy with their churches that this quickly becomes their space-- their time to laugh, relax, and then sit around making bad jokes about God and musing on the state of the universe. Jake would never tell Anna this (though on a level she probably knows it anyway), but these nights are his favorites, the one he looks forward to the most.

Anna doesn't join them and has never tried to; at best it would be awkward. Religion is the one context where Anna invariably becomes the third wheel, and she knows it. It's not that he hides things from her, because so far he has nothing to hide, thank God - but that there are things he can go to Brian with that only Brian will understand - things you could tell your best friend but not your rabbi, and definitely, _definitely_ not your wife. Brian has said before that no one, not even a priest, makes a better confessor than your best friend. He was speaking generally, but Jake never forgot it. If it came down to it, Brian would be the first person Jake ran to. It makes sense - his best friend is a priest, so Jake figures he has the best of both worlds.

Anna once told Jake she thinks the idea that the Comedy Channel could substitute for real news is indicative of how far society has laxed its standards. If it reaches people and getting them interested in the news, Jake had responded, then aren't you challenging them to think?

That's not challenging them to think, Jake, she had replied. Comedy doesn't motivate people to change - it only gives them a reason to view the state of the world they live in as entertainment.

Ever since that conversation, Jake has wondered, but never found the bravery to ask, what she is thinking every time she laughs at his sermons.

He had asked her to marry him at the Met, in front of her favorite Bonnard painting, the small one in the corner that she had said reminded her of him. She's never explained that one and Jake has never asked her to. They've been married for just over two years in March. It feels sometimes like much longer.

There are survival mechanisms that everyone has developed, put in place to protect themselves from catastrophic events such as life, love, and the aftermath of terrorist attacks. Jake has never really been afraid of life, or terrorists, so his coping skills have been honed to deal with the third option - or in this case, with Anna.

A lot of people hide from their problems, and the problems of the world, through denial, avoidance, and willful ignorance - psychological tricks to help them cope, unhealthy though they may be. Spiritual leaders also have to be counselors, so Jake can't use any of those tactics because he spends most of his time trying to convince people that they're bad. Jake's survival tactic involving Anna is to do exactly what Anna does: try to deflect problems by pretending to be stronger than the rest of the universe. Jake is a strong guy, emotionally speaking, but Anna - there's something about Anna's strength that terrifies him. Not in a threatened masculinity kind of way, but in a way that Jake never ever lets him think too deeply about.

It's not that she's not spiritually committed (it had taken her a very long time to forgive him for that crack about them not being spiritually compatible, and even longer to believe that he really meant his apology). She is the kind of person who commits 100% to whatever it is she's committing to. She has committed herself to Jake the same way that she committed herself to boosting her company into the Fortune 500. She has committed herself to Jake's church; to Jake's family and friends; to her role as Jake's wife.

Only someone truly and deeply troubled would have misgivings about this - about a gorgeous, successful career woman who is 100% committed to being his wife and partner for life. But this is a post 9-11 world, as the _Times_ informs him regularly, and things are supposed to be backwards.

It's deep-seeded and close, as things with Anna always are. So Jake goes to work, enjoys his life, makes love to Anna, talks about kids, and thanks God every day for giving him a beautiful wife.

And four nights a week he hears Brian ask him how Anna is, and every time Jake answers `oh, she's fine,' his voice shifts, ever so gradually towards guardedness.

Fine; Anna is always fine.

There is a resilience and an independence that is the cornerstone of New York; individuals are battered against it every day and in some cases all their lives, but you can never break this town. Live here long enough, Jake thinks privately, and it will either break your spirit or harden it through fire - this is how it survives. Anna is a true New Yorker, Jake thinks; like the city, she decided long ago that she was invincible. He and Brian are still on the whetting stone, being hewn into something solid. Before he met - well, re-met- Anna, he had thought the process was ongoing for everyone. But with Anna, he finally understands that there really is a New York state of mind; that it is a constant, ebullient, fists-up approach to life, the embodiment of every boxing movie ever made - and that she is in it all the time.

Since September, 2001, Jake has watched a lot of boxing movies. He's not sure whether they helped or not.

What he is sure of is that, somehow, it's 2007, and he and Anna will have been married five years in March. That's one year longer than the Iraq war, four years and six months longer than Brian was in love with Anna, and three years longer than Jake has been chief rabbi at the synagogue.

If he's being totally honest with himself, it would also be about six months less than the amount of time that it took Brian to realize that he never loved Anna to begin with, and about eight months less than the time it has taken Jake to realize that he has a better chance of ultimate happiness with Brian as his heterosexual lifemate than he does with Anna. Because Anna will always be there, pushing for more, for the future, for a higher goal, for something new to contend with - and Jake will always be right here, with Brian four nights a week, trying his best just to make sense out of now.

When Jake and Brian were nine they had their first fight about religion. "Jesus saves you," Brian informed him. "That's because people can't save themselves so they needed God to do it for them."

"Bull," Jake had responded. "People have to save each other. What else are they here for?"

This fight, as it turns out, was the only one they had ever had. They had debated it hotly before deciding they were both kind of right and leaving it at that. Jake is in love with the idea of people finding the strength within them to save themselves. Brian is in love with the idea of a God wonderful enough to give people the strength to save themselves. Apples to oranges.

They both agree that sometimes people just need saving. From themselves. From each other. From their mistakes past, present, and future.

When Jake is being utterly honest with himself, he knows the problem is that Anna doesn't need saving. He and Jake, sooner or later, will stumble into salvation, redemption, whatever you want to call it, together. And when they get there, Anna will be sitting on the throne (or whatever they have in Salvation-land), wearing a powersuit and smoking a Cuban cigar. "What took you so long, boys?" she'll say. And the problem isn't so much that Anna doesn't look great in a power suit, but that Jake and Brian have been on this journey together. For Anna the journey was complete the moment she said `I do.' This is her life now - career woman, model wife, converted Jew.

Jake wants to ask her - these roles she's adopted: is she in them all the time? Does she believe in them? Do they make her happy? But it would be like asking the prototypical New Yorker if they ever get tired of being brusque, cynical, and a Yankees fan. To get a non-brusque, non-cynical answer would be to break the spell. And maybe you don't really want the answer anyway.

This is what Jake knows.

He would rather watch the Daily Show and the Colbert Report with Brian four nights a week, hanging out at the rectory and drinking bad coffee, occasionally falling asleep on Brian's couch and ending up with their feet in each other's faces, than spend time with his wife. Whom he loves dearly.

This is what Jake knows.

Survival and salvation are not the same. Surviving comes first.

Saving Anna and saving his marriage are not the same thing. Surviving both, however, may well be. So every Sabbath, Jake reminds people to have faith, in themselves and each other. He reminds people to believe in the good of all mankind, and he reminds people to search themselves. To grow. To change. He looks at Anna in the audience when he says these things.

When she laughs, as she invariably does every Sunday, he tells himself that her laughter is better than nothing - that even if she views his sermons as entertainment, she's listening. He tells himself that the growth will come. The shifting, the putting aside of roles. It will come, and he will be there when it does.

In the meantime, he survives. And even if he is a stand-up act, he thinks - he and Brian both -

\- at least they're still standing.

 

 

 


End file.
